DOVU And BMW Join Forces To Collect Mileage Data, Use Cryptocurrency As Incentive

As soon as you drive a new car off the lot it loses a great deal of its value, and nobody knows this better than Nick Brownrigg, CEO of Alphabet, BMW’s leasing and fleet vehicle arm.

Brownrigg and his team are tasked with preserving the resale value of each vehicle after a lease expires, or after a fleet of cars is returned. For BMW to get the biggest return on these vehicles, it must collect, store, and assess massive amounts of credible data. It uses these data to evaluate the mileage of a vehicle, the damage it may have accrued, and how these factors may affect the resale value. The current system for this process utilizes a fuel card, writes blockchain startup DOVU, which was invited to partner with Alphabet and BMW’s Innovation Lab to find a better way to track data. “When a driver fuels their vehicle, the fuel station is supposed to enter and store the mileage of the vehicle, also printing the mileage on the fuel receipt.”

But because people make mistakes by typing in the wrong numbers or sometimes neglect to log the information at all, Brownrigg’s team often finds itself unable to use these inconsistent data.

This led Alphabet, BMW, and DOVU to collaborate on a pilot program in which BMW drivers were prompted by a wallet app to take a picture of their dashboards once a week. Once the submission was verified, it was added to DOVU’s blockchain and users received one DOV token. Repeat users were given more tokens. In this way, Brownrigg and BMW can compile real-time vehicle data that are consistent, reliable, and unalterable. The data are then used to assess the millage, damage, and resale value of returned vehicles.

Upon completing the ten-week program, DOVU wrote:

“We had produced a custom wallet for BMW, co-branded with the Alphabet visual branding. The app was distributed internally via our enterprise accounts with versions available for iOS and Android users and the pilot continues to run so we can keep measuring how tokenisation can encourage people to carry out certain tasks or influence their behavior.” 

Nathan Graham is a full-time staff writer for ETHNews. He lives in Sparks, Nevada, with his wife, Beth, and dog, Kyia. Nathan has a passion for new technology, grant writing, and short stories. He spends his time rafting the American River, playing video games, and writing.

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